Thread:User talk:Rua/Osx and Odt Weak 2 verbal ending/reply

I don't know if length is ever indicated natively in Old Saxon, and it's certainly not in Old Dutch (what little we have left of it anyway). Of course, the vowel was originally long, but there are 7 centuries between the end of Proto-West Germanic and the start of the "middle" period, so a lot could have happened in that time. Personally I find it doubtful that the vowel was long right before the change to schwa, so that implies the vowel was long at the start of the "old" period, and shortened at the end. We don't know exactly when the shortening happened, so what we should indicate for Old Saxon and Old Dutch as a whole isn't so clear. Perhaps it could be argued that the vowel was probably long through most of the period, so it should be indicated as such. On the other hand, I feel like a macron is more of a definite statement "we know this was long" than lack of a macron means "we know this was short".

EDIT: I had a look at some old grammar books I happen to have in digital form. Holthausen's "Altsächsisches Elementarbuch" says in the phonology section:
 * (unstressed) Langes ō ist gewöhnlich zu o verkürzt, wie den gelegentliche übergang zu u und a zeigt
 * Long ō is usually shortened to o, which the occasional change to u and a shows
 * (Zweite schwache (-ō-) Klasse. In den zahlreichen (abgeleiteten) Verben dieser Klasse ist das stammbildende -ō- bereits kurz geworden, wie der nicht seltene Übergang desselben in a beweist.
 * (Second weak (-ō-) class. In the numerous (derived) verbs of this class, the stem-forming -ō- has already shortened, which is demonstrated in the not uncommon change of this vowel to a.

So I think we should go with the macronless form.